She squirmed on that last question. Emitted one sound bite response like a pro.

Fewer females than males on earth! When primate societies become over-represented with male sex they become violent. As Gloria said the greater polarization between sex roles the more violent the society.

So, what part does a highly polarized, Empire of Endless Wars imperialist militaristic society look like today? Much more violent in ordinary daily life than I remember back in Gloria’s and my youth.

Feminists in second wave were part of the great anti-Vietnam war epic. Student riots. Fires in Watts and other communities.

I think the success of anti-war and feminists and civil rights advocates scared the wits out of GOP types and the war, debt and economic enslavement of youth to student loans was quite deliberate. We caught them with their pants down. They have drones now to hold them up.

She’s correct. Everything is interconnected. Second wavers chose reproductive freedom and the equal rights amendment as first focuses not intended to be the end of our progress. We thought that children’s welfare and other top women’s priorities would follow in those wins, but the ERA never passed and then the b-lash stalled the whole freedom train for women.

I said stalled.

*trans deserves self-identification. They just can’t demand I overlook simple biological facts. The transvestite paraphiliacs are not women and demanding that they access safe women-only spaces as a rape and molestation survivor crosses a line in the sand to my personal well-being and recovery from what men did to me.

The fact that Gloria squirmed on the trans question make me want to ask her more. The squirm told me a lot. I would like to know how much she knows of transactivist threats, bullying and takeover of gay rights groups. Perhaps the squirm says she does know.

For instance, how will legally defining “woman” as someone who has a pink brain, wears “womanly” clothes and thinks “womanish” thoughts stop, or even slow down FGM? Systematic sexual assault and harrassment? Rape? Domestic violence against women? Homocide as a leading cause of death to pregnant women? Abortion rights? Access to birth control?

Or, are tranwomen’s right to redefine and/or silence females out of existence totally unrelated to female oppression, brutalization and terrorism?

I doubt she’s as foolish as she sounds, but she really sounds like a 20-year-old who’s just learning the lingo of social justice.

Society needs to change to adjust to the individual? As Lissa succinctly said above, which individuals? And, what does “adjust to” mean, anyway? Does it mean to accept uncritically whatever claims anyone makes? There is no way to avoid making unpopular distinctions and taking a stand, when people make identity claims that are woman-hating, classists, racist — we all knew this 30 years ago. Now, we’re supposed to forget it, and roll over.

Maybe Steinem is tired — pushing 80, she may dread becoming the target of vicious trans attacks. I can understand that — I’m sure she has received death threats throughout her adult life because of her activism. But she has to formulate some kind of response. The Ms. Foundation’s embrace of “trans women” is horrifying. Did she have anything to do with it?

She needs either to retire from public life, or, if she wants to keep being heard, she needs to be responsible and forthright about this.

Gallus Mag — I don’t know how else to get this to you, I don’t see an email address or contact form. Have you heard about Stefoknee Wolscht, a 47-year-old man, father of 7 children, who just had to realize his true self? His true self is a 6-year-old girl. He’s happy now. Oh, and he can go for a week without remembering his past life. Including his ex-wife and those 7 children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbiAHnjHlHg

Bev Jo is correct. Even way back when, most 2nd Wavers considered Steinem a liberal, not a feminist. Individualism is a liberal/libertarian stance, not a feminist one. Feminists view women as a class.

Steinem did not stumble at the end. Steinem has supported trans for years – at the expense of women.

It is also apparently true that Steinem was receiving checks from the CIA. I didn’t want to believe it but I have seen some of the documents which have circulated over the years and have heard Steinem admit to it in interviews. Which is where men got the idea that feminism was a CIA operation.

This is a good article on Steinem and the CIA. There is no doubt that she was a CIA operative. Steinem served as director of the CIA-funded Independent Research Service from 1958-62. The goal was to spy on Marxist students in Europe.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but this article says Steinem had affairs with right wing men. This article says she dated Henry Kissinger.

The CIA has done some horrific things in the U.S., Central and South America, the Middle East, and throughout the world. It was involved in the coup in Chile that put the brutal dictator, Pinochet in power. Under Pinochet, thousands of Chileans were tortured, murdered,and disappeared. The CIA has been meddling in South America affairs for decades, and propping up despots and tyrants. The CIA was involved in the notorious 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, placing the corrupt Shah or Iran in power. The Iranian Revolution in the 1980s that put the militants and religious fanatics like Khomeini in power was a backlash against the pro-Western tyrant the Shah. In the so-called “war on terror”, people have been tortured in CIA black op sites. The CIA contracted with two U.S. military psychologists to come up with some rather inventive ways to “interrogate” people, and the ACLU is currently suing the psychologists. The CIA paid the two psychologists $80 million to develop interrogation techniques designed to psychologically break people down.

Operation Mockingbird, a CIA backed campaign to influence the media goes back to the 1950s, but some people say it’s still going on. One possible reason why Steinem was portrayed as some kind of leader in the feminist movement was due to CIA influence in the media. Mainstream media in the U.S. is so corrupt that no one can trust it. The fact that she was lauded by mainstream media as some kind of leader of feminists is one reason not to trust her.

@ Bev Jo,

“She was a CIA agent. Always was liberal. Set up by the media as our spokeswoman, against our will….”

I agree, and watching the video is creepy. She waits about half a minute to say something, carefully choosing her words. It’s like watching a politician trying to pander to everyone, but not saying anything at all. She acts like one of the brainless, robot Stepford Wives, but I know she isn’t stupid. It was a strange video to me.

Gloria Steinhem doesn’t speak for me, and she is not part of my feminism. I always thought there was something different about her. This was before I read about her being a CIA operative.